What Dogs Understand about Humans

Bräuer, Juliane

doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-407818-5.00010-3

Cited by 20 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 83 publications

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“…However, it is also possible that since dogs may have little concept that the other participant has intentions (Bräuer, 2014), social play might conceivably be a homogeneous phenomenon, with the variations that we have described depending mainly on the morphologies of the participants (e.g. dogs can't throw sticks) and the relationships between them.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why do adult dogs ‘play’?

Bradshaw

Pullen

Rooney

2015

Behavioural Processes

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Among the Carnivora, play behaviour is usually made up of motor patterns characteristic of predatory, agonistic and courtship behaviour. Domestic dogs are unusual in that play is routinely performed by adults, both socially, with conspecifics and with humans, and also asocially, with objects. This enhanced playfulness is commonly thought to be a side effect of paedomorphosis, the perpetuation of juvenile traits into adulthood, but here we suggest that the functions of the different types of play are sufficiently distinct that they are unlikely to have arisen through a single evolutionary mechanism. Solitary play with objects appears to be derived from predatory behaviour: preferred toys are those that can be dismembered, and a complex habituation-like feedback system inhibits play with objects that are resistant to alteration. Intraspecific social play is structurally different from interspecific play and may therefore be motivationally distinct and serve different goals; for example, dogs often compete over objects when playing with other dogs, but are usually more cooperative when the play partner is human. The majority of dogs do not seem to regard competitive games played with a human partner as "dominance" contests: rather, winning possession of objects during games appears to be simply rewarding. Play may be an important factor in sociality, since dogs are capable of extracting social information not only from games in which they participate, but also from games that they observe between third parties. We suggest that the domestic dog's characteristic playfulness in social contexts is an adaptive trait, selected during domestication to facilitate both training for specific purposes, and the formation of emotionally-based bonds between dog and owner. Play frequency and form may therefore be an indicator of the quality of dog-owner relationships.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why do adult dogs ‘play’?

Bradshaw

Pullen

Rooney

2015

Behavioural Processes

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“…By monitoring human faces, dogs seem to obtain a continuous stream of social information ranging from communicative gestures to emotional and attentive states. Even if this does not mean that dogs are readers of our minds but only exquisite readers of our behavior [ 39 ], they evaluate humans on the basis of direct experiences [ 40 ] and are sensitive to what humans can see (a form of perspective-taking; reviewed by Bräuer [ 41 ]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Processing of Human Emotional Faces by Pet and Lab Dogs: Evidence for Lateralization and Experience Effects

et al. 2016

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From all non-human animals dogs are very likely the best decoders of human behavior. In addition to a high sensitivity to human attentive status and to ostensive cues, they are able to distinguish between individual human faces and even between human facial expressions. However, so far little is known about how they process human faces and to what extent this is influenced by experience. Here we present an eye-tracking study with dogs emanating from two different living environments and varying experience with humans: pet and lab dogs. The dogs were shown pictures of familiar and unfamiliar human faces expressing four different emotions. The results, extracted from several different eye-tracking measurements, revealed pronounced differences in the face processing of pet and lab dogs, thus indicating an influence of the amount of exposure to humans. In addition, there was some evidence for the influences of both, the familiarity and the emotional expression of the face, and strong evidence for a left gaze bias. These findings, together with recent evidence for the dog's ability to discriminate human facial expressions, indicate that dogs are sensitive to some emotions expressed in human faces.

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“…Living closely to conspecifics has benefits such as more efficient defense against predators or hunting, however, the competition over resources may also increase among group members. It is assumed that the recognition of group mates as prosocial or antisocial is important in many gregarious species to predict the future behavior of others (Bonnie and Earley, 2007; Subiaul et al, 2008; Bräuer, 2014). Thus this skill can contribute to survival due to the avoidance of harmful individuals and can facilitate the choice of an appropriate partner to engage in successful cooperation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Origin of Social Evaluation, Social Eavesdropping, Reputation Formation, Image Scoring or What You Will

Abdai

Miklósi

2016

Front. Psychol.

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Social evaluation is a mental process that leverages the preference toward prosocial partners (positivity bias) against the avoidance of antisocial individuals (negativity bias) in a cooperative context. The phenomenon is well-known in humans, and recently comparative investigations looked at the possible evolutionary origins. So far social evaluation has been investigated mainly in non-human and human primates and dogs, however, there are few data on the presence of negativity/positivity bias in client-cleaner reef fish interactions as well. Unfortunately, the comparative approach to social evaluation is hindered by conceptual and procedural differences in experimental studies. By reviewing current knowledge on social evaluation in different species, we aim to point out that the capacity for social evaluation is not restricted to humans alone; however, its building blocks (negativity and positivity bias) may be more widespread separately. Due to its importance in survival, negativity bias likely to be widespread among animals; however, there has been less intensive selective pressure for the identification of prosocial companions, thus the latter ability may have emerged only in certain social species. We present a general framework and argue that negativity and positivity bias evolve independently and can be considered as social evaluation only if a unified behavior and cognitive system deals with both biases in concert.

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What Dogs Understand about Humans

Cited by 20 publications

References 83 publications

Why do adult dogs ‘play’?

Why do adult dogs ‘play’?

The Processing of Human Emotional Faces by Pet and Lab Dogs: Evidence for Lateralization and Experience Effects

The Origin of Social Evaluation, Social Eavesdropping, Reputation Formation, Image Scoring or What You Will

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